Journal of Knot Theory and Its Ramifications

We show there exists a linear embedding of K_3,3,1 with n nontrivial 2-component links if and only if n = 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5.

Braids can be represented geometrically as curve diagrams. The geometric complexity of a braid is the minimal complexity of a curve diagram representing it. We introduce and study the corresponding notion of geometric generating function. We compute explicitly the geometric generating function for the group of braids on three strands and prove that it is neither rational nor algebraic, nor even holonomic. This result may appear as counterintuitive. Indeed, the standard complexity (due to the Artin presentation of braid groups) is algorithmically harder to compute than the geometric complexity, yet the associated generating function for the group of braids on three strands is rational.

We bound the hyperbolic volumes of a large class of knots and links, called homogeneously adequate knots and links, in terms of their diagrams. To do so, we use the decomposition of these links into ideal polyhedra, developed by Futer, Kalfagianni and Purcell. We identify essential product disks in these polyhedra.

Region crossing change at a region of a knot, link or spatial-graph diagram is a local transformation which changes all the crossings on the boundary of the region. In this paper, we show that we can make any crossing change by a finite number of region crossing changes on any diagram of a connected spatial graph which has no cutting circles.

In 1999, Kauffman–Harary conjectured that every non-trivial Fox p-coloring of a reduced, alternating knot diagram with prime determinant p is heterogeneous. Ten years later this conjecture was proved by Mattman and Solis. Williamson generalized this conjecture to alternating virtual knots and proved it for certain families of alternating virtual knots. In this paper, by studying the coloring matrices and the determinants of alternating virtual knot diagrams we give an affirmative answer to the Kauffman–Harary conjecture for alternating virtual knots.

The zeroth coefficient polynomial of the skein (HOMFLYPT) knot polynomial called the Γ-polynomial is studied from a viewpoint of regular homotopy of knot diagrams. In particular, an elementary existence proof of the knot invariance of the Γ-polynomial is given. After observing that there are three types for 2-string tangle diagrams, the Γ-polynomial is generalized to a polynomial invariant of a 2-string tangle. As an application, we have a new proof of the assertion that Kinoshita's θ-curve is not equivalent to the trivial θ-curve.